“That sounds … like a cult,” my friend said, shifting nervously in her seat.
She was responding to my description of a ritual in which each Friday night, hundreds of girls wear all-white outfits and perform synchronized dances to Israeli folk songs.”There is a certain hierarchy to it,” I explained. Knowing the dances demonstrates commitment to the community and is therefore a symbol of status. Beautiful form and elegance are optional, but the girls must learn the dances to assimilate.
“Yeah, but it’s like … fun,” I responded. I understood why she did not understand. Though the folk dancing “cult” is not a cult with the typical pejorative connotation, it aligns well with one definition: “A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange.”
I think this is how a lot of people come to understand their experiences at summer camp.
French sociologist Emile Durkheim defines religion as a community’s system of unifying common beliefs that serve to differentiate the sacred from the profane. The goal, ultimately, is to create standards of morality and behavioral mores to which members of the community subscribe. Camp creates a closed community — a bubble, some say — that shares a system of rituals, symbols and norms that are difficult to communicate to outsiders. By Durkheim’s definition, camp is, in a sense, a religion in and of itself.
The camp I attended for 10 years is Jewish, but the “cult” of Camp Louise extends far beyond principles of Judaism.
One ritual, significant to campers but impossible to explain to outsiders, is the camp bus ride.
When you’re on the bus and you pass this one red barn, you have to sing “Jack & Diane” by John Mellencamp. And then when you go over train tracks, everyone yells “Screws!” and you have to put your fingers on the screws of the bus. And when you pull into the boys camp, you sing “No Scrubs” by TLC.
None of it makes sense, but part of the magic of the camp bubble is an inability to explain these traditions and their profound importance.
On the mountain, everything inside the camp bubble is amplified and everything outside is minimized. I was at camp when Michael Jackson died; no one batted an eyelash. But when an epidemic began killing off the camp goats, the entire community was in mourning.
I spent the summer at camp during a few Summer Olympics, and I never kept track of the winning countries. The only high-stakes competition of any importance to me was Color Games (two days of screaming, running and monochromatic outfits). When I was a counselor-in-training, the captains, co-captains and lieutenants were exposed for cheating during the counselor hunt (a glorified hide-and-go-seek). The lieutenants were four of my fellow CITs, and I watched them break down — shocked, humiliated and angry — during the ordeal. A third-year counselor took it upon herself to mitigate their rage.
“Zoom out,” she said, reminding them that the world is infinitely larger than their relatively insignificant misstep. Indeed, when I describe to my friends who have never been to camp the anxiety and frustration we all felt at that moment, they never understand.
Camp Louise is located in rural Western Maryland. Our trips to Pen Mar, the local park, were abrupt moments of contact with the world beyond the bubble. We often would encounter the Mennonite families who heavily populated the town. I remember wondering about these families when I was younger. I looked at their long skirts, aprons and bonnets with a sense of bewilderment. In retrospect, however, I imagine that they saw us — in our spandex and T-shirts and topknots and Crocs, frolicking and singing NSYNC — and felt a similar sense of wonder. The standards dictated by our pseudo-religious allegiance to camp fundamentally changed our behavior, attire and musical choices.
Though I have not been back on the mountain in almost three years, I will always remember that sense of connectedness and feel a firm solidarity with others who share my spiritual connection to the irresistible “cult” of camp.
Xandra Ellin is a Jmore editorial staff intern.
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